Photographing mermaids

JUST WHAT do mermaids do when they're not floating around in the deep blue sea, say, or starring in children's movies? That question informs a project that's stretched over the past several years for Eugene photographer Carl D. Johnson, a recent transplant from San Francisco, by way of Illinois. A few of his whimsical interpretations of the secret lives of mermaids, mermen and merchildren have been on display in the cafe at Borders Books & Music. These tongue-slightly-in-cheek portraits, very beautifully done, are split-toned and hand-colored, lending a quiet surrealism to their built-in otherworldly qualities. What makes them so charming, though, is their straight-faced approach to manifest absurdity; the work looks as though Edward Gorey had been turned loose with a camera.

Johnson, 32, is a recent graduate in photography of the Academy of Art College in San Francisco and has worked as a free-lance commercial photographer, shooting for clients like Gap, Joe Boxer and WebTV. The "whole mermaid thing," as he calls it, started in the mid-1990s. Along the way Johnson inveigled some three dozen friends and acquaintances into posing in various locations while wearing a hand-made "mer suit,'' consisting of a fabric tail and cardboard fin. The location work sometimes drew odd glances and questions from bystanders. Johnson would just explain he was working on a children's book, and let it go at that.

In one photograph, a child sits in a shopping cart, a merchild for sale, perhaps, or just out shopping for fish food with Mom. In another, a mermaid is tied across railroad tracks, Snidely Whiplash-style. In his most popular print, a quite corpulent mermaid - Johnson calls her "Mama Manatee" - sits out of the water on a wooden trestle and blows a conch shell. "I have always liked mermaids," the photographer says. "Just not the typical siren singing to the sailors."

The Borders exhibit, which is unfortunately poorly lit for viewers, contains only part of his complete collection of 15 mer-prints, but still gives a good idea of what he's up to. Meanwhile, Johnson is hoping one day to find a publisher for the whole set, perhaps indeed as a children's book.

Nov. 24, 2002